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Wurzel wrote:No worries Rex - I'm made up as I got some Greenstreaks today with a side order of Grizzlie Now for those Dukes, Dingies, Coppers, Pearls...

Have a goodun

Wurzel

Brilliant Wurzel, knowing you it won't be long before you have all of those in the bag



Seemingly against the advice of the Met Office I set out this morning to look for some more Orange Tips and hopefully my first Pearl Bordered Fritillary of the year. It didn't look too promising when I arrived, the early sunshine had given way to increasing amounts of cloud. Thankfully there were enough sunny spells coming through and there was hardly a breeze.

The first butterfly I saw wasn't an Orange Tip but a nice fresh looking Green Veined white.
Soon after that I saw my first Orange Tips of the day.
I must admit that I thought it was still a little bit early for the Pearl Bordered Fritillaries to be on the wing at Abbot's Wood but to my surprise and delight I saw 2 the moment I arrived. They were both extremely fresh and as bright as a new penny.
Only moments after I took these photos the heavens finally opened and I got all wet. It was well worth it though, I had such a wonderful day today, I might even have a few more photos to post up after I've had more time to look through the rest of them.

Hopefully this spring will be a lot kinder to the PBF's then recent years and numbers of this lovely butterfly will start to recover.

B'saurus

Lovely images, Rex. It'll be a fortnight before I can make a date with my 'local' PBFs but you have sure whetted my appetite.

David M wrote:Lovely images, Rex. It'll be a fortnight before I can make a date with my 'local' PBFs but you have sure whetted my appetite.

Cheers David, They are a lovely sight when they are so fresh and undamaged


Having just looked through some more of today's images, I am please to say that a few more came out ok - I saw my first ever pair of mating Orange Tips today

I even managed to photograph some courtship before the coupling.
B'saurus

Lovely sequence of the courting Orange Tips, Rex. Good to hear also about Abbots Wood, I'll be visiting there myself next weekend.

Best wishes,

Lee

Great Orange-tip sequence Rex and those Pearls are something else We're about a week or more behind you so hopefully the weather will be good next Bank Holiday

Have a goodun

Wurzel

Lee Hurrell wrote:Lovely sequence of the courting Orange Tips, Rex. Good to hear also about Abbots Wood, I'll be visiting there myself next weekend.

Best wishes,

Lee

Thank you Lee, hopefully there will be even more fresh ones on the wing by the time you visit next weekend.

All the best

B'saurus

Wurzel wrote:Great Orange-tip sequence Rex and those Pearls are something else We're about a week or more behind you so hopefully the weather will be good next Bank Holiday

Have a goodun

Wurzel

Cheers Wurzel, I hope the rain stays away, we all know about bank holidays and the 'magnetic attraction' they seem to have for clouds and percipitation I was very lucky to see some pearls so close to their emergence. They were minty fresh

All the best

B'saurus

Beautiful Pearls but I am equally in awe of your OT's especially after my recent 'near miss'.

Some lovely photos for the PBFs and Orange Tips Rex and I love that OT courtship sequence

Cheers,

Neil.

Pauline wrote:Beautiful Pearls but I am equally in awe of your OT's especially after my recent 'near miss'.

Many thanks Pauline yes it is disappointing when you miss out on a chance like that. You'll get another chance though, being so dedicated I'm sure that chance will come sooner rather than later

All the best

nfreem wrote:Some lovely photos for the PBFs and Orange Tips Rex and I love that OT courtship sequence

Cheers,

Neil.

You're very kind Neil, it was a lovely moment to witness, I'm very pleased that my camera didn't fail me at the critical moment.

Best Wishes

B'saurus

You've got me itching to make the trip to Abbot's Wood, B'Saurus! And the courting Orange Tips photographs are wonderful!

Marvellous work!

Happy Hunting

Hoggers

Hoggers wrote:You've got me itching to make the trip to Abbot's Wood, B'Saurus! And the courting Orange Tips photographs are wonderful!

Marvellous work!

Happy Hunting

Hoggers

Thank you kindly Hoggers I hope it's a good year for the Pearls at Abbot's in 2014. Hopefully you can get there and see some lovely fresh ones soon.

All the best


Even more greens!

Today I managed to get over to my local GHS spot for a couple of hours, the weather was unexpectedly warm and sunny so I couldn't resist popping out to see what I could find.

As I walked to the site I saw my first Wall's of the year, about 7 or 8 in total! As usual they didn't allow me a decent photo, I took a few but they'll all end up in the bin along with most of my Wall "attempts"
As well as the Wall Browns I counted a further 16 species including my first Painted Lady of 2014.

Hopefully I'm not over doing it with the Green Hairstreaks photos in my diary, they are a real favourite of mine so I'm trying to make the most of them.

Along the way I spotted this handsome Angle Shades Moth. And the Numbers of Speckled Wood are still on the rise. When I arrived at the site it seemed that the Greenies were being rather elusive and harder to find than usual, the reason for this would become clear a little later on.

After a good search I did find a couple of Greenies defending their territories.
As I contained my search I started to notice more and more GHS's on the ground and especially in amongst the grass. It would appear that I had stumbled upon the females egg laying day! In total I counted 6 females ova-positing. This would appear to be the reason I could not find as many territorial Greenies as usual perched higher up enjoying the sunshine.

Female GHS laying an egg. Mmmmmphh mmm mmpph mph mmmppphhh! What's that Mrs Hairstreak? I couldn't quite catch that. I said it's hard work laying my eggs down here in this heat!

B'saurus

A few years ago I would have found your PD and all the "horrible green thingies " (as I called them at the time) really hard going, but now that I have conquered my nemesis I'm lapping up the images Rex But hold the phone "16 other species", 17 in a day? I have still seen only 14 so far this year Oh for the South Easts climate over this side of the country.

Have a goodun

Wurzel

Wurzel wrote:... But hold the phone "16 other species", 17 in a day? I have still seen only 14 so far this year Oh for the South Easts climate over this side of the country.

Wurzel

Or in the middle, I have been on 9 species for the past couple of weeks, still waiting for some more to wake up around here

Cracking photos Rex, keep them coming, its the closest I am getting at the moment

Cheers,

Neil

Wurzel wrote:A few years ago I would have found your PD and all the "horrible green thingies " (as I called them at the time) really hard going, but now that I have conquered my nemesis I'm lapping up the images Rex But hold the phone "16 other species", 17 in a day? I have still seen only 14 so far this year Oh for the South Easts climate over this side of the country.

Have a goodun

Wurzel

"Horrible green thingies"! That's a bit harsh Wurzel 16 species was pretty good going for these parts at this time of year!
I saw in no particular order:

Wall
Holly Blue
Small Tort
Peacock
Green Veined White
Large White
Small White
Orange Tip
Speckled Wood
Green Hairstreak
Dingy Skipper
Red Admiral
Brimstone
Small Copper
Comma
and the big surprise a painted lady!

You do live in a lovely part of the UK though Wurzel, it's probably worth waiting a little bit longer

nfreem wrote:

Wurzel wrote:... But hold the phone "16 other species", 17 in a day? I have still seen only 14 so far this year Oh for the South Easts climate over this side of the country.

Wurzel

Or in the middle, I have been on 9 species for the past couple of weeks, still waiting for some more to wake up around here

Cracking photos Rex, keep them coming, its the closest I am getting at the moment

Cheers,

Neil

I'll try Neil but the weather fairy is frowning at me. I get the impression from the Met Office that we're in for an unsettled spell

Thank you for the kind comment though

Best wishes

B'saurus

Good work, Rex. You are having a barnstorming start to the season.

Wall Brown is particularly notable.

Cheers David, it's been really great so far, of course Badgerbob saw quite a few Wall Browns 'probably' over a week before I did. I would love to see some Dukes next but the weather looks a bit ominous. Hopefully soon

All the Best

B'saurus

What an amazing sight and great that you managed to get a shot of one in the process. I have never seen that before J. How close were you able to get and would you say that they were focused on the task or quite wary?

Hi Pauline, I didn't want to get too close and disturb her so my photos are heavily cropped. I was amazed to see not only this female out egg laying but several others all on the same day!

Best Wishes

B'saurus

Catch up pt 1 - Close!

After a bit of an absence I've got a little catching up to do on my personal diary.

Sadly I've been too busy to travel far from my home patch, the good news is there are still some good areas close to home where I'm almost guaranteed to see certain species.

Starting off VERY 'close' to home (my garden in fact) I saw a female Holly Blue egg laying.
Keeping up with the 'close' theme I "somehow" managed to get rather close to a couple of Wall Browns earlier on this week.
After managing that I felt almost anything was possible so I went to my local spot for Grizzled and Dingy skippers to see if I could do something similar with them.
After that I went home with a bad headache - no doubt brought on by self induced myopia!

B'saurus

Hey James. Well done on getting really close to the Wall Browns. Not an easy task!! A fabulous pattern they have on their underwings shown off brilliantly here!